Ethan Nichtern: Mindful Social Networking: Going Online Without Losing Your Mind

Interesting…

I struggle with the fact that I spend so much time on line, but justify it by having given up television and making the shift towards exploring writing and commentary as a possible side job at some point in the future.

Being a Libra, I’m in a constant struggle for balance anyway…

And we are really good at justification of questionable behavior…

The Social Network is an amazing phenomenon, an amazing opportunity to see the truth of interdependence, that none of our lives occur in an isolated vacuum. Social networking is also, possibly, the most widespread addiction on our planet right now, sucking billions of hours we’ll never get back again. On a recent meditation retreat, I asked assembled students to share their favorite “evasive maneuvers” from the present moment, the ways we all hide out from having to be here with the direct simplicity of right now. People said all kinds of funny and not so funny things. In a discussion group later in the weekend, one student wondered why nobody had brought up Twitter and Facebook. Another student joked “Ethan asked us what our individual evasive maneuvers were, not our shared ones. Everyone’s addicted to Facebook. That just goes without saying at this point.”

From the Buddhist standpoint, the best framework to analyze social networking is a concept called “coemergence.” Coemergence refers to the ability of any particular phenomenon or experience to manifest as either wisdom or confusion, helpful or harmful, a weapon or a prison. From this standpoint (which is sometimes considered an advanced framework for working with meditation practice), phenomena are in themselves neither positive nor negative, but they only become helpful or harmful according to how the mind attends to them and fixates upon them. Enter the social network. Is it the greatest tool for connection and camaraderie the world has ever seen? Or is it a dangerous time-suck, isolating us in bubbles of anxious voyeurism? Well, it’s both.

What make the distinction? Whether or not you view your time online as a practice or an escape makes all the difference in the world. At the same time, recognizing the truth of coemergence is a great way to develop compassion and overcome guilt about our actions. Even Mark Zuckerberg himself seems like quite the coemergent dude.

via Ethan Nichtern: Mindful Social Networking: Going Online Without Losing Your Mind.